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C.ORMGHT DEPOSIE 



21 




DR. FRANK CRANE 



"We may all possess wisdom if we are willing to 
be persuaded that the experience of others is as 
useful as our own. Why give to old age alone 
the privilege of wisdom? What would be thought 
of one who prided himself on possessing bracelets 
when he had lost his two arms in war?" 

— Yoritomo, the Japanese Philosopher. 



21 



BY 

DR. FRANK CRANE 



Being the article "If I Were Twenty-One" 

which originally appeared in the 

American Magazine 

Revised by the author 




FRONTISPIECE 



Garden City New York 

DOUBLED AY, PAGE & COMPANY 

1918 



^ 






Copyright, 1918, by 

DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 

^4// ngrfe reserved, including that of 

translation into foreign languages, 

including the Scandinavian 



Copyright, 1917, by the 
Crowell Publishing Company 



17 1918 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 



A Foreword vii 

Prelude ix 

I. If I were Twenty-One I would 

do the next thing ... 3 
II. If I were Twenty-One I would 

adjust myself 7 

III. If I were Twenty-One I would 

take care of my body . . 10 

IV. If I were Twenty-One I would 

train my mind .... 14 

V. If I were Twenty-One I would 

be happy . . . . . .17 

VI. If I were Twenty-One I would 

get married 21 

VII. If I were Twenty-One I would 

save money 25 

VIII. If I were Twenty-One I would 

study the art of pleasing . 27 
v 



CONTENTS 

IAPTEB PAGE 

IX. If I were Twenty-One I would 
determine, even if I could 
never be anything else in 
the world, that I would be a 

thoroughbred 31 

X. If I were Twenty-One I would 
make some permanent, ami- 
cable arrangement with my 
conscience 35 



VI 



A FOREWORD 

The following note, by the editor 
of the American Magazine, ap- 
peared in conjunction with the publi- 
cation of this story in that magazine: 

In most of the biggest cities of 
the United States, from New York 
and Chicago down, you will find 
people who, every night of their 
lives, watch for and read in their 
evening paper an editorial by 
Frank Crane. These editorials 
are syndicated in a chain of thirty- 
eight newspapers, which reach 
many millions of readers. The 
grip which Crane has on these 
vii 



FOREWORD 

readers is tremendous. The reas- 
on is that the man has plenty of 
sensible ideas, which he presents 
simply and forcibly so that people 
get hold of them. 

In reality, Crane is a wonderful 
preacher. Years ago, in fact, he 
was the pastor of a great church 
in Chicago. But he left the pulpit 
and took up writing because he 
had the ability to interest millions, 
and could reach them only by 
means of the printing press. 

Doctor Crane lives in New York 
and does most of his work there. 



vm 



PRELUDE 

The voyager entering a new 
country will listen with attention 
to the traveller who is just return- 
ing from its exploration; and the 
young warrior buckling on his 
armour may be benefited by the 
experiences of the old warrior who 
is laying his armour off. I have 
climbed the Hill of Life, and am 
past the summit, / suppose, and 
perhaps it may help those just 
venturing the first incline to know 
what I think I would do if I had 
it to do over. 

I have lived an average life. I 
have had the same kind of follies, 

ix 



PRELUDE 

fears, and fires my twenty-one- 
year-old reader has. I have failed 
often and bitterly. I have loved 
and hated, lost and won, done 
some good deeds and many bad 
ones. I have had some measure 
of success and I have made about 
every kind of mistake there is to 
make. In other words, I have lived 
a full, active, human life, and have 
got thus far safely along. 

I am on the shady side of fifty. 
As people grow old they accumu- 
late two kinds of spiritual supplies: 
one, a pile of doubts, questionings, 
and mysteries; and the other, a 
much smaller pile of positive con- 
clusions. There is a great tempta- 
tion to expatiate upon the former 
subjects, for negative and critical 
statements have a seductive ap- 



PRELUDE 

pearance of depth and much more 
of a flavour of wisdom than clear 
and succinct declarations. But I 
will endeavour to resist this temp- 
tation, and will set down, as con- 
cisely as I can, some of the posi- 
tive convictions I have gained. 

For the sake of orderly thought, 
I will make Ten Points. They 
might of course just as well be 
six points or forty, but ten seems 
to be the number most easily 
remembered, since we have ten 
fingers, first and "handiest" of 
counters. 



XI 



21 



21 



IF I WERE TWENTY-ONE I WOULD 
"DO THE NEXT thing" 

The first duty of a human being 
in this world is to take himself 
off other people's backs. I would 
go to work at something for which 
my fellow men would be willing to 
pay. I would not wait for an Ideal 
Job. The only ideal job I ever 
heard of was the one some other 
fellow had. 

It is quite important to find the 
3 



TWENTY-ONE 

best thing to do. It is much more 
important to find something to 
do. If I were a young artist, I 
would paint soap advertisements, 
if that were all opportunity offered, 
until I got ahead enough to indulge 
in the painting of madonnas and 
landscapes. If I were a young 
musician, I would rather play in 
a street band than not at all. If 
I were a young writer, I would do 
hack work, if necessary, until I 
became able to write the Great 
American Novel. 

I would go to work. Nothing 
in all this world I have found is 
so good as work. 

I believe in the wage system as 

the best and most practical means 

of coordinating human effort. 

What spoils it is the large indi- 

4 



TWENTY-ONE 

gestible lumps of unearned money 
that, because of laws that origi- 
nated in special privilege, are in- 
jected into the body politic, by 
inheritance and other legal arti- 
ficialities. 

If I were twenty-one I would 
resolve to take no dollar for which 
I had not contributed something 
in the world's work. If a phi- 
lanthropist gave me a million dol- 
lars I would decline it. If a rich 
father or uncle left me a fortune, 
I would hand it over to the city 
treasury. All great wealth units 
come, directly or indirectly, from 
the people and should go to them. 
All inheritance should be limited 
to, say, $100,000. If Government 
would do that there would be no 
trouble with the wage system. 

5 



, TWENTY-ONE 

If I were twenty-one I would 
keep clean of endowed money. 
The happiest people I have known 
have been those whose bread and 
butter depended upon their daily 
exertion. 



6 



II 



IF I WERE TWENTY-ONE I WOULD 
ADJUST MYSELF 

More people I have known have 
suffered because they did not know 
how to adjust themselves than for 
any other reason. And the happi- 
est-hearted people I have met have 
been those that have the knack 
of adapting themselves to what- 
ever happens. 

I would begin with my relatives. 

While I might easily conceive a 

better set of uncles, aunts, cousins, 

brothers, and so on, yet Destiny 

7 



• TWENTY-ONE 

gave me precisely the relatives I 
need. I may not want them, but I 
need them. So of my friends and 
acquaintances and fellow work- 
men. Every man's life is a plan of 
God. Fate brings to me the very 
souls out of the unknown that I 
ought to know. If I cannot get 
along with them, be happy and 
appreciated, I could not get along 
with another set of my own pick- 
ing. A man who is looking for ideal 
human beings to make up his circle 
of acquaintances would as well go 
at once and jump into the river. 

The God of Things as They 
Ought to Be is a humbug. There 
is but one God, and He is the 
God of Things as They Are. 

Half of my problem is Me; the 
other half is Circumstances. My 
8 



TWENTY-ONE 

task is to bring results out of the 
combination of the two. 

Life is not a science, to be 
learned; it is an art, to be prac- 
tised. Ability comes by doing. 
Wisdom comes not from others; it 
is a secretion of experience. 

Life is not like a problem in 
arithmetic, to be solved by learn- 
ing the rule; it is more like a puz- 
zle of blocks, or wire rings — you 
just keep trying one way after 
another, until finally you succeed, 
maybe. 

I think it was Josh Billings who 
said that in the Game of Life, as 
in a game of cards, we have to 
play the cards dealt to us; and the 
good player is not the one who al- 
ways wins, but the one who plays 
a poor hand well. 
9 



Ill 



IF I WERE TWENTY-ONE I WOULD 
TAKE CARE OF MY BODY 

The comfort and efficiency of 
my days depend fundamentally 
upon the condition of this physical 
machine I am housed in. I would 
look out for it as carefully as I 
attend to my automobile, so that 
it might perform its functions 
smoothly and with the minimum 
of trouble. 

To this end I would note the 
four X's. They are Examination, 
Excretion, Exercise, Excess. 

Examination: I would have 
10 



£ 



TWENTY-ONE 

my body thoroughly inspected by 
intelligent scientists once a year. 
I do not believe in thinking too 
much about one's health, but I 
believe in finding out the facts, 
and particularly the weaknesses, 
of one's mechanism, before one 
proceeds to forget it. 

Excretion: By far the most 
important item to attend to in re- 
gard to the body is the waste 
pipes, including the colon, the 
bladder, and the pores. Most dis- 
eases have their origin in the colon. 
I would see to it that it was thor- 
oughly cleaned every day. In 
addition, I would drink plenty of 
water, and would take some form 
of exercise every day that would 
induce perspiration. Most of my 
sicknesses have come from self- 
11 



TWENTY-ONE 

poisoning, and I would make it my 
main care to eliminate the waste. 

Exercise: I would, if I were 
twenty-one, take up some daily 
system of exercise that would 
bring into play all the voluntary 
muscles of the body, and especially 
those which from my occupation 
tend to disuse. I would devote 
half an hour to an hour daily to 
this purpose. 

Excess: I would take no stim- 
ulant of any kind whatsoever. 
Whatever whips the body up to 
excess destroys the efficiency of 
the organism. Hence I would not 
touch alcoholic drinks in any form. 
If one never begins with alcohol 
he can find much more physical 
pleasure and power without it. 
The day of alcohol is past, with 
12 



' TWENTY-ONE 

intelligent people. Science has 
condemned it as a food. Business 
has banned it. It remains only as 
the folly of the weak and fatuous. 

I would drink no tea or coffee, 
as these are stimulants and not 
foods. Neither would I use to- 
bacco. The healthy human body 
will furnish more of the joy of life, 
if it is not abused, than can be 
given by any of the artificial 
tonics which the ignorance and 
weakness of men have discovered. 

If I were twenty-one, all this! 



13 



IV 

IF I WERE TWENTY-ONE I WOULD 
TRAIN MY MIND 

I would realize that my eventual 
success depends mostly upon the 
quality and power of my brain. 
Hence I would train it so as to 
get the best out of it. 

Most of the failures I have seen, 
especially in professional life, have 
been due to mental laziness. I was 
a preacher for years, and found 
out that the greatest curse of the 
ministry is laziness. It is prob- 
ably the same among lawyers and 
physicians. It certainly _ is so 
14 



TWENTY-ONE 

among actors and writers. Hence, 
I would let no day pass without its 
period of hard, keen, mental exer- 
tion so that my mind would be 
always as a steel spring, or like a 
well-oiled engine, ready, resilient, 
and powerful. 

And in this connection I would 
recognize that repetition is better 
than effort. Mastery, perfection, 
the doing of difficult things with 
ease and precision, depend more 
upon doing things over and over 
than upon putting forth great 
effort. 

I would especially purge myself 
as far as possible of intellectual 
cowardice and intellectual dishon- 
esty. By intellectual dishonesty 
I mean what is called expedi- 
ency; that is, forming, or adhering 
15 



TWENTY-ONE 

to, an opinion, not because we 
are convinced of its truth, but 
because of the effect it will have. 
A mind should, at twenty-one, 
marry Truth, and "cleave only 
unto her, till death do them part, 
for better, for worse. 5 ' 

By intellectual cowardice I mean 
all superstitions, premonitions, and 
other forms of mental paralysis or 
panic caused by what is vague. 
To heed signs, omens, cryptic 
sayings, and all talk of fate and 
luck, is nothing but mental dirt. 
I have seen many bright minds 
sullied by it. It is worthy only 
of the mind of an ignorant savage. 



16 



IF I WERE TWENTY-ONE I WOULD 
BE HAPPY 

By this I imply that any one 
can be happy if he will. Happi- 
ness does not depend on circum- 
stances, but upon Me. 

This is perhaps the greatest 
truth in the world, and the one 
most persistently disbelieved. 

Happiness, said Carlyle, is as 
the value of a common fraction, 
which results from dividing the 
numerator by the denominator. 
The numerator, in life, is What We 
Have. The denominator is What 
17 



TWENTY-ONE 

We Think We Ought to Have. 
Mankind may be divided into two 
classes : Fools and W ise. The fools 
are eternally trying to get happi- 
ness by multiplying the numera- 
tor, the wise divide the denomi- 
nator. They both come to the 
same — only one you can do and 
the other is impossible. 

If you have only one thousand 
dollars and think you ought to 
have two thousand dollars, the 
answer is one thousand divided 
by two thousand, which is one 
half. Go and get another thou- 
sand and you have two thousand 
divided by two thousand, which 
is one; you have doubled your 
contentment. But the trouble is 
that in human affairs as you mul- 
tiply your numerator you uncon- 
18 



TWENTY-ONE 

sciously multiply your denomina- 
tor at the same time, and you get 
nowhere. By the time your sup- 
ply reaches two thousand dollars 
your wants h 3 ave risen to twenty- 
five hundred dollars. 

How much easier simply to re- 
duce your Notion of What You 
Ought to Have. Get your idea 
down to one thousand, which you 
can easily do if you know the art 
of self-mastery, and ycu have one 
thousand divided by one thousand, 
which is one, and a much simpler 
and more sensible process than 
that of trying to get another one 
thousand dollars. 

This is the most valuable secret 

of life. Nothing is of more worth 

to the youth than to awake to the 

truth that he can change his wants. 

19 



TWENTY-ONE 

Not only all happiness, but all 
culture, all spiritual growth, all 
real, inward success, is a process of 
changing one's wants. 

So if I were twenty-one I would 
make up my mind to be happy. 
You get about what is coming to 
you, in any event, in this world, 
and happiness and misery depend 
on how you take it; why not be 
happy? 



20 



VI 

IF I WERE TWENTY-ONE I WOULD 
GET MARRIED 

I would not wait until I became 
able to support a wife. I would 
marry while poor, and marry a 
poor girl. I have seen all kinds of 
wives, and by far the greatest 
number of successful ones were 
those that married poor. 

Any man of twenty-one has a 
better chance for happiness, moral 
stature, and earthly success, if 
married than if unmarried. 

I married young, and poor as 
Job's turkey. I have been in 
21 



TWENTY-ONE 

some hard places, seen poverty 
and trial, and I have had more 
than my share of success, but in 
not one instance, either of failure 
or triumph, would I have been 
better off single. My partner in 
this task of living has doubled 
every joy and halved every defeat. 

There's a deal of discussion over 
sex problems. There is but one 
wholesome, normal, practical, and 
God-blessed solution to the sex 
question, and that is the loyal love 
of one man and one woman. 

Many young people play the 
fool and marry the wrong person, 
but my observation has been that 
"there's no fool like the old fool," 
that the longer marriage is post- 
poned the greater are the chances 
of mistake, and that those couples 
22 



TWENTY-ONE 

are the most successful in matri- 
mony who begin in youth and 
grow old together. 

In choosing a wife I would 
insist on three qualifications: 

1. She should be healthy. It 
is all well enough to admire an 
invalid, respect and adore her, 
but a healthy, live man needs a 
healthy woman for his companion, 
if he would save himself a thousand 
ills. 

2. She should have good com- 
mon sense. No matter how pretty 
and charming a fool may be, and 
some of them are wonderfully 
winning, it does not pay to marry 
her. Someone has said that pretty 
women with no sense are like a 
certain cheap automobile: they 
are all right to run around with, 

23 



TWENTY-ONE 

but you don't want to own 
one. 

And 3. She should be cheerful. 
A sunny, brave, bright disposition 
is a wife's best dowry. 

As to money, or station in life, 
or cleverness, or good looks, they 
should not enter at all into the 
matter. If I could find a girl, 
healthy, sensible, and cheerful, and 
if I loved her, I'd marry her, if 
I were twenty -one. 



24 



VII 

IF I WERE TWENTY-ONE I WOULD 
SAVE MONEY 

Money has a deal to do with 
contentment in this workaday 
world, and I'd have some of my 
own. There isn't a human being 
but could save a little. Every 
man, in America at least, could live 
on nine tenths of what he does 
live on, and save the other tenth. 
And the man who regularly saves 
no money is a fool, just a plain fool, 
whether he be an actor getting one 
thousand dollars a week or a ditch- 
digger getting one dollar a day. 

25 



TWENTY-ONE 

And I would get my life insured. 
Life insurance is the most practical 
way for a young man, especially 
if he be a professional man, or 
any one not gifted with the knack 
of making money, to achieve finan- 
cial comfort. The life insurance 
companies are as safe as any money 
institution can be. You are com- 
pelled to save in order to pay your 
premiums, and you probably need 
that sort of whip. And those de- 
pendent upon you are protected 
against the financial distress that 
would be caused by your death. 
I believe life insurance to be the 
best way to save money, at least 
for one who knows little about 
money. 



26 



VIII 

IF I WERE TWENTY-ONE I WOULD 
STUDY THE ART OF PLEASING 

Much of the content from life 
is due to having pleasant people 
around you. Hence I would form 
habits and cultivate manners that 
would please them. 

For instance, I would make my 
personal appearance as attractive 
as possible. I would look clean, 
well-dressed, and altogether as en- 
gaging as the material I had to 
work with would allow. 

I would be punctual. To keep 

27 



TWENTY-ONE 

people waiting is simply insolent 
egotism. 

I would, if my voice were un- 
pleasant, have it cultivated until 
it became agreeable in tone. I 
would speak low. I would not 
mumble, but learn the art of clear, 
distinct speech. It is very trying 
to associate with persons who talk 
so that it is a constant effort to 
understand their words. 

I would learn the art of conver- 
sation, of small talk. I would 
equip myself to be able to enter- 
tain the grouchiest, most blase 
people. For there is hardly a 
business in the world in which it 
is not a great advantage to be 
able to converse entertainingly. 

The secret of being a good con- 
versationalist is probably a gen- 
28 



TWENTY-ONE 

uine, unselfish interest in others. 
That and practice. It consists 
more in making the other person 
talk than in talking yourself. 

I would learn ho\v to write so 
that it would not burden people 
to read it. In this matter, one 
hint: The English language is com- 
posed of separate letters, hence, 
when you have written one letter, 
if you will move your pen along 
before you write the next we shall 
be able, probably, to discover 
what you intend, no matter how 
imperfectly you compose your 
separate letters. 

I would not argue. I never 
knew one person in my life that 
was convinced by argument. Dis- 
cuss, yes; but not argue. The 
difference is this : in discussion you 
29 



TWENTY-ONE 

are searching for the truth, and 
in argument you want to prove 
that you are right. In discussion, 
therefore, you are anxious to know 
your neighbour's views, and you 
listen to him. In argument, you 
don't care anything about his 
opinions, you want him to hear 
yours; hence, while he's talking 
you are simply thinking over what 
you are going to say as soon as 
you get a chance. 

Altogether, I would try to make 
my personality pleasing, so that 
people would in turn endeavour 
to be pleasing to me. 



30 



IX 

IF I WERE TWENTY-ONE I WOULD 
DETERMINE, EVEN IF I COULD 
NEVER BE ANYTHING ELSE IN THE 
WORLD, THAT I WOULD BE A THOR- 
OUGHBRED 

Thoroughbred, as it is currently 
used, is a word rather difficult to 
define, perhaps entirely non-de- 
finable. Yet we all know what it 
means — it is like Love. 

But it implies being several 
things: One, being a good sport, 
by which I mean the kind of a man 
that does not whine when he fails, 
but gets up smiling and tackles it 
31 



TWENTY-ONE 

again, the kind of man whose fund 
of cheer and courage does not de- 
pend upon success, but keeps brave 
and sweet even in failure. 

Let me quote what I have writ- 
ten elsewhere on this point : 

In one of the plays of this season, 
"The Very Minute," one of the charac- 
ters says something to this effect: You 
go on till you can go no further, you reach 
the limit of human endurance, and then — 
you hold on another minute, and that's 
the minute that counts. 

The idea is a good one. That last 
minute, the other side of the breaking 
point, is worth thinking about. 

It is that which marks the thorough- 
bred. 

There is a something in the hundredth 
man that bespeaks a finer quality. It is 
unconquerableness, heroism, stick-to-it- 
iveness, or whatever you have a mind 
to call it. 

32 



TWENTY-ONE 

We have a way of attributing this to 
breeding, after the analogy of horses and 
dogs; but while there's something in blood 
I doubt if it is a very trustworthy guar- 
anty of excellence. So many vigorous 
parents have children that are morally 
spindling, and so many surprising samples 
of superiority come from common stock, 
that heredity is far from dependable. 

But the quality exists, no matter how 
you account for it — a certain toughness of 
moral fibre, an indestructibility of purpose. 

Any mind is over matter, but there 
are some wills so imperial, so dominant 
over the body, that they keep it from col- 
lapse even after its strength is spent. 

We see it physically in the prize fighter 
who "doesn't know when he is beaten," 
in the race horse that throws an unex- 
pected dash into the last stretch even after 
his last ounce of force is gone, in the 
Spartan soldier who exclaimed "If I fall 
I fight on my knees." 

Of all human qualities that have lit 
up the sombreness of this tragic earth, 
33 



TWENTY-ONE 

I count this, of being a thoroughbred, 
the happiest. 

It has saved more souls than penance 
and punishment, it has rescued more 
business enterprises than shrewdness, it 
has won more battles and more games, 
and altogether felicitously loosed more 
hard knots in the tangled skein of des- 
tiny than any other virtue. 

Most people are quitters. They reach 
the limit. They are familiar with the 
last straw. 

But the hundredth man is a thorough- 
bred. You cannot corner him. He will 
not give up. He cannot find the word 
"fail" in his lexicon. He has never 
learned to whine. 

What shall we do with him? There's 
nothing to do but to hand him success. 
It's just as well to deliver him the prize, 
for he will get it eventually. There's no 
use trying to drown him, for he won't sink. 

There's only one creature in the world 
better than the man who is a thoroughbred. 
It is the woman who is a thoroughbred. 
34 



X 



IF I WERE TWENTY-ONE I WOULD 
MAKE SOME PERMANENT, AMICABLE 
ARRANGEMENT WITH MY CON- 
SCIENCE 

God, Duty, Death, and Moral 
Responsibility are huge facts which 
no life can escape. They are the 
external sphinxes by the road of 
every man's existence. He must 
frame some sort of an answer to 
them. 

It may please the reader to 
know how I have answered them. 
It is very simple. 

I am familiar, to some extent, 
35 



TWENTY-ONE 

with most of the religions, cults, 
and creeds of mankind. There 
are certain points common to 
every decent religion, for in every 
kind of church you are taught to 
be honest, pure-minded, unselfish, 
reverent, brave, loyal, and the 
like. 

These elements of religion may 
be called the Great Common Di- 
visor of all faiths. 

This G. C. D. is my religion. 
It is what more than fifty years of 
thought and experience has win- 
nowed out for me. It is my re- 
ligion. And I think I glimpse 
what Emerson meant when he 
wrote that "all good men are of 
one religion." 

And the matter can be reduced 
to yet plainer terms. There is but 
36 



TWENTY-ONE 

"one thing needful," and there's 
no use being "careful and troubled 
about many things." That one 
thing is to do right. 

To do Right and not Wrong will 
save any man's soul, and if he be- 
lieves any doctrine that implies 
doing wrong he is lost. 

So, let a man of twenty-one 
resolve, and keep his purpose, 
that, no matter what comes, no 
matter how mixed his theology 
may be, no matter what may be 
the rewards of wrong-doing, or 
the perils and losses of right-doing, 
he will do right; then, if there 
is any moral law in the universe, 
that man must sometime, some- 
where, arrive at his inward tri- 
umph, his spiritual victory and 
peace. 

87 



TWENT Y-ONE 

And the corollary of this is that 
if I have done wrong the best and 
only way to cure it is to quit 
doing wrong and begin to do right. 
If any man will stick to this, make 
it his anchor in times of storm, his 
pole-star in nights of uncertainty, 
he will cast out of his life that which 
is life's greatest enemy — Fear. He 
need not fear man nor woman, 
nor governments nor mischief- 
makers, nor the devil nor God. 
He will be able to say with the 
accent of sincerity that word of 
William Ernest Henley, to me the 
greatest spiritual declaration in 
any language: 

Out of the night that covers me, 
Black as the pit from Pole to Pole, 

I thank whatever gods may be 
For my unconquerable soul. 
38 



TWENTY-ONE 

In the fell clutch of circumstance 
I have not winced nor cried aloud, 

Beneath the bludgeonings of chance 
My head is bloody, but unbowed. 

It matters not how strait the gate, 1 , 
How charged with punishments the 
scroll, 

I am the master of my fate, 
I am the captain of my soul. 

Let me repeat that I have not 
been telling what I did with the 
implication that the youth of 
twenty-one would do well to fol- 
low me. I did not do all these 
things. Far from it ! I wish I had. 
I only say that if I were twenty- 
one, as I now see life, I would 
do as I have here suggested. But 
perhaps I would not. I might go 
about barking my shins and burn- 
ing my fingers, making idiotic 
39 



TWENTY-ONE 

experiments in the endeavour to 
prove that I was an exception to 
all the rules, and knew a little 
more than all the ancients. So 
let not the young man be discour- 
aged if he has committed follies; 
for there seems to emerge a pe- 
culiar and vivid wisdom from 
error, from making an ass of 
one's self, and all that, more use- 
ful to one's own life than any wis- 
dom he can get from sages or 
copybooks. 

In what I have written I have 
not tried to indicate the art of 
"getting on," or of acquiring riches 
or position. These usually are what 
is meant by success. But success 
is of two kinds, outward and in- 
ward,orapparentandreal. Outward 
success may depend somewhat 
40 



TWENTY-ONE 

upon what is in you, but it depends 
more upon luck. It is a gambling 
game. And it is hardly worth a 
strong man's while. Inward and 
real success, on the contrary, is 
not an affair of chance at all, but 
is as certain as any natural law. 
Any human being that will observe 
the laws of life as carefully as 
successful business men observe 
the laws of business will come to 
that inward poise and triumph 
which is life's happiest crown, as 
certainly as the stars move in 
their courses. 

I would, therefore, if I were 
twenty-one, study the art of life. 
It is good to know arithmetic 
and geography and bookkeeping 
and all practical matters, but it is 
better to know how to live, how 
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to spend your day so that at the 
end of it you shall be content, 
how to spend your life so that you 
feel it has been worth while. 



THE END 



42 




THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS 
GARDEN CITY, N. Y. 



